In the afterlife
You could be headed for the serious side
Now you make the scene all day
Come tomorrow there'll be hell to pay
-The Squirrel Nut Zippers
A Forward To The Afterlife.
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by Richard Carrozza
The recent mass suicide of the Higher Source cult and
their unusual expectations has prompted me to give a lot of
thought to the afterlife lately. I refer to the Higher Source
as a cult only because of the few numbers in their group and not
because of their beliefs. I am bearing in mind that all religions
started out as cults.
What most of us believe exists in the afterlife, if we
believe at all in an afterlife, is usually based on a religious
teaching. Our expectations can range from Pearly Gates to flying
saucers behind comets to nothingness.
The late anthropologist Joseph Campbell, when interviewed by
Bill Moyers in the PBS TV six part series "The Power of Myth",
stated he believed that religions were like software. You can run
your computer with any number of operating systems software,
whichever one works for you is OK.
The Near Death Experiences (NDE's) I researched for this
essay were all in English. Therefore many accounts implied a
religious experience that was of a Western Christian nature. I
cannot imagine a Hindu of a Muslim meeting Jesus in his NDE any
more than I can imagine a devout Catholic meeting Buddha in his.
EZ ESP.
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At this point let me clarify what I mean when I use the term
"Psychic Experience". By "Psychic Experience" I mean an experience
that does not use what we would normally think of as the five
corporeal senses. I do not exclusively mean what is commonly called
ESP.
The French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre in his book "Being
and Nothingness" points out that there is no more "phenomena" in
ESP than in any other form of temporal activity. I completely
agree with Sartre about this. What's the big deal about ESP?
Who can explain how the eyes see and read the words from this
page and transform them into thoughts and ideas? Who can explain
how we can touch a surface and perceive that it is hot or cold,
hard or soft, smooth or coarse? Can anyone explain ANY temporal
activity. It is all phenomena. There is no less a miracle in
hearing a song or smelling a rose than there is in predicting an
airline disaster or knowing a loved one is in danger.
Death By Definition.
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If we were to completely disregard faith and rely on the
facts in order to initiate a scientific inquiry then we will
soon find ourselves at a dead end. If you will pardon the pun.
The closest thing we have to facts are the accounts of
people who have survived near death experiences. By near death I
mean individuals who were clinically dead and returned to life.
By clinically dead I mean dead as far as we can determine with
our awkward scientific instruments. Since I am trying to be as
scientific in this as possible I will assume that "clinically
dead" means dead, gone and out of here.
Some 60% of NDE survivors do not remember anything
whatsoever of their experience which means that they could not or
would not remember. It can also mean that they DO remember and
that what they found after death was nothingness. Most NDE's were
unique to the individual but many had similarities. The most
common were as follows:
The 14 Top Reasons People Think They Are Deceased.
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1. A feeling of exiting and/or being out of their bodies
and seeing their bodies from an outside point of view.
2. seeing their life pass before their eyes
3. an ability to move instantly from place to place
4. the sensation of moving backwards and away from their
bodies through space or a tunnel
5. meeting another presence, be it God, Jesus, a deceased
relative or an unknown entity. Some felt it was
themselves or within them.
6. communicating as if by mental telepathy
7. being in a good place and not wanting to leave, a
feeling of peace
8. being in a bad place and being terrified
9. seeing a bright white light, some at the end of the
tunnel
10. being drawn to the light and wanting to go into it
11. being asked if they wanted to stay by the presence
12. being told by the presence that their time had not yet
come
13. hearing someone in the proximity of their corporeal
bodies
14. returning to their bodies
The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of
---------------------------------
My research comprised of randomly selecting and reading the
first hand accounts of a few dozen survivors from the many
testimonies available. Due to this random sampling technique I may
have left out a few less common similarities but I feel the above
list will suffice to make my point.
The thing I find most striking about the testimonies is
their unmistakable resemblance to dreams. Floating, traveling
from place to place instantly, seeing deceased loved ones,
communicating as if by telepathy and of course the dream-like
symbolism. All the accounts I read seemed to be told as if one
were describing a dream. Indeed many thought at the time that they
were dreaming.
When dreaming we do not use our eyes to see. We do not use
our ears to hear or our feet to walk, we do not use any of our
corporeal facilities to experience the dream world. Dreaming is a
purely psychic experience.
The feelings and visions reported in NDE's are pure psychic
experiences, exactly identical to the psychic experience of a
dream.
It makes sense that if a one were to leave their body they
would not have the use of their corporeal senses. Therefore they
could only interpret the experience to themselves and others in
the familiar setting of a dream.
Some reported feelings of exiting the body, of moving back-
wards away from the body, or of the self observing it's body from
a distance. These are all in symbolic form the "knowledge" that one
has or is being separated from their bodies.
I am not saying that people who experienced NDE's were only
dreaming. What I am saying is that the only way they could "recall"
a non-physical world experience would be in the symbolic form of
a recalled dream.
Meeting deceased relatives, friends, Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed,
even Elvis in the afterlife seems to be consistent with what the
people expected they would find when they died. In other words
some would expect to meet their ancestors, a devout Christian
expects to meet Jesus, Higher Source members expected to meet
aliens and so on. Let us not forget that Joseph Campbell said, in
effect, that all religions work.
If there is an entity that awaits us in the next world then
we could not see him without our bodies to provide the eyes. Each
person returning from such an encounter would have to provide a
face and a body for the entity in order to recall it later.
Hence the variety of descriptions given to the "entity" by
NDE survivors who met Jesus, Muhhamed, dead friends or relatives
and so on.
The white light some recall seeing was interpreted
differently depending on the individual. Some thought it was
heaven, others eternity or God or even themselves.
I believe the white light was symbolic of God, eternal peace
or an eternal reward such as heaven. White and light in most
cultures in this world are symbols of goodness in these cases eternal
good.
As stated Earlier some people had no recollection at all of
their NDE's. Perhaps they could not translate the experience into
empirical terms or perhaps they actually found nothing.
My Conclusions
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Even if no one ever reported an NDE it makes sense to me
that if their is a form of human awareness after death it could
not incorporate the use of the body's sense organs. Therefore any
awareness experienced after death could only be interpreted as a
dream. That is any Self awareness, as we know it, is not likely
to be at a level higher than as if in a dream.
Finally I am really going to go out on a limb and suggest that
what you think you WILL find after death is what you will think
you HAVE found when you get there.
Using Death As Your Confidant
-----------------------------
I will leave the reader with this view of death adopted from
Carlos Costeneda's book, "Journey to Ixtlan". I have always found
this Native American story to be quite poetic.
Just reading this page is very dangerous. You may die
before you finish it. You see your death is standing there right
behind you. He is always there. Stalking you. Waiting just behind
your left shoulder. If you turn your head suddenly you can see him
as a black shape, a shadow. He is waiting to tap you on the shoulder
and take you. He has to wait until you are weak. When you are sick
or injured and weak enough then his time has come.
There is good in having your death with you all the time.
You can turn to him and use him as your adviser. Death is your only
wise adviser. When you are sad and things are bad for you just
turn to him and tell him of all your troubles and how trying they
are. He will listen. Then he will tell you, "That's OK. Things
aren't that bad. Don't worry yourself. It isn't important. The
only thing you really have to worry about is my touch."